Elihue Warren (1828-1910)
}} Biography Elihu Warren is the son of Horace Austin Warren and Susan Hathaway. Elihu was the first of the Warrens to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elihu may have had some awareness of the Mormons at an early age since his home in Thompson was less than 20 miles from Kirtland, Ohio, where the Church had its headquarters from 1831 to January of 1838. Elihu married Clarissa Thwing 29 October, 1849. He farmed in Thompson before taking his family to Lockport, Illinois, 35 miles southwest of Chicago where he purchased land at $2 an acre and planted corn. Deer, duck, geese, wild fruit, and berries were plentiful on his land. Elihu and Clarissa had six children, which included a set of twins. Two of their children died young. Besides farming, Elihu was a stagecoach driver and engaged in the freight business. In approximately 1860, Elihu was hired to drive cattle to California. After he left for this job, his eastern family never heard from him again. They surmised that he was killed by Indians or had gone with the Mormons to Utah. His wife, Clarissa, returned back to Thompson, Ohio and the children were left with relatives. Elihu’s parents, Horace and Susan, raised Elvira, one of the twins. Two years after Elihu’s disappearance, Clarissa married a Mr. Mercer. 1860 Wagon Train East of Salt Lake City, Utah, many of the cattle they were driving became sick and died. The wagon master immediately sent for help, hoping that someone could determine why the cattle were ailing. After investigation, the cattlemen from Salt Lake City surmised that the animals were eating too much larkspur. As part of the investigation, Elihu cut open a carcass for further examination. In the process, he accidentally cut a large gash in his arm that became infected, turning to blood poison. Because of this malady, he was forced to stay in Salt Lake City rather than continue on with the drive to California. Alfred Randall, one of the men from Salt Lake City who came to help, invited Elihu to stay at his home while he recovered. The Randalls were a religious family and took Elihu to the Church. Some accounts say he became converted during this time and was baptized. Initially Elihu worked in a grocery store, later finding work in the freight business delivering goods and returning gold from the mines, likely in Montana. Such routes were dangerous because of numerous robbers and potential attacks by Indians. He was known to bore holes in the wagon tongues and fill them with gold dust to disguise his valuable cargo. One account, recorded by Mable Campbell, a granddaughter, states: Elihu had been given a sack of gold dust in a heavy canvas bag and as he started back it came to him, what would he do if he met some Indians. He stopped his horses and took his hammer and chisel and cut a hole in the wagon tongue. He put the sack of gold dust in there. He cut a can open and nailed it over the top, then taking some water and dirt he spread it over the top and went on his way. The next morning as Elihu was cooking breakfast the Indians came. He said, “Hi, Have you come to eat breakfast with me?” They said, “Yes,” and after they had eaten they bid him farewell.” A few years previous, the Randall family, mentioned above, had taken into their home a young girl, Marie Stalle, from the Edmund Ellsworth Handcart Company. Elihu and Marie were attracted to one another and decided to marry.. Shortly before their marriage, Marie learned that Elihu had another family and six children in Ohio. Mable Campbell gives the following account: When they (the Stalles) reached Salt Lake, Brigham Young asked if anyone could take some of these immigrants and Alfred and Mildred Randall took Grandmother Marie Stalle. Marie’s mother took her brother Daniel and sister, Margaret, to Bingham’s Fort to live. Aunt Margaret was lonesome to see Marie so she was allowed to come visit her in Salt Lake for a few days. During Margaret’s visit, Grandfather Elihu Warren told the Randalls that he was married and had six children. When Grandmother (Marie) came to bed, Aunt Margaret said, “Are you going to marry Warren and know he has six children?” She said, “Yes” and it was never spoken of again. Elihu and Marie were married 5 April, 1862 and had thirteen children, the third being Thomas Walter Warren, Bessie Warren’s grandfather. During his life Elihu engaged in a variety of occupations. Besides being in the freight business, he was a storekeeper and, when residing in North Ogden, he farmed and trapped to the east of the city up Ogden and Weber Canyons. The raising of sugar cane and converting it to molasses by the operation of a mill Elihu had established on his property, and peddling it to Salt Lake City and elsewhere formed a large part of the family’s livelihood. They also dried a great deal of fruit. Elihu often took his children or grandchildren to accompany him on his trap line. On occasion a coyote would become ensnared. The youngsters said he only showed anger when an eagle was feeding on an animal caught in the trap’s claws. He was an excellent stone mason and built rock buildings and fences in the north Ogden area, fashioning them after early colonist homes on the East Coast and those in areas of England and Ireland where his ancestors resided. Elihu’s North Ogden home had three-foot-thick rock basement walls. The rock walls of the two stories above ground were two-feet-wide. At one time the upper floor was a dance hall entered by stairs from the outside. Oxen and cattle were kept in a barn built into the hillside with stables underneath. Elihu was 82 years old when he died in North Ogden on the 11 November, 1910. Sources of Information Evan P. and Bessie Warren Call—Family History and Legacy, pp. 10-12 History of Elihu Warren and His Family, by Mable W. Campbell, granddaughter.